


If on an autumn's night a snuggie

by Philipa_Moss



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Halloween, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-08
Updated: 2010-11-08
Packaged: 2017-10-13 03:03:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/132116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Philipa_Moss/pseuds/Philipa_Moss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It started with the Snuggie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If on an autumn's night a snuggie

It had been brewing for years, but it really started with the Snuggie.

The facts were these: James and Phillipa wanted to trick-or-treat. Cobb wanted to meet with a potential client over drinks. Arthur wanted to do his damn job and not, you know, baby-sit. Becca the babysitter had tickets to some ungodly death metal concert and called at the last minute to cancel. Cobb did everything short of order Arthur to fill in.

So that was how it came to be that, on the night of October 31st, Arthur stood in the doorway with Elvis on one side and a marshmallow Peep on the other and watched Cobb's car pull out of the driveway. "I could have been a pilot," Arthur muttered to himself. "I could be working at the Pentagon right now." He shut the door and ushered James and Phillipa back into the living room. "Okay, guys, are you ready to go?"

"We still have eighteen minutes and forty-eight seconds," said Phillipa, looking at her digital Hello Kitty watch---a birthday present, Arthur knew, from Cobb---which clashed, kind of endearingly Arthur was willing to admit, with her Elvis costume.

Arthur blinked. "Until what?"

Phillipa squinted at him in a manner that could only be described as Cobbian. "Until trick-or-treating opens. Duh."

"Oh," said Arthur. In his day, kids had started going door-to-door whenever they pleased, and they only stopped when Old Man Harrison on the corner threatened them with his shotgun. (Arthur was glad he hadn't said as much out loud. It made him sound like an eighty-year-old Kentuckian.)

"I want Twizzlers," James said from somewhere within his Peep costume. "I want Twizzlers and M&Ms and Snickers and Nerds and Hershey's and Kit Kats and Butterfingers. But I don't want Milk Duds. Or those squishy orange peanuts."

Arthur's phone buzzed in his pocket and he pulled it out and open without even checking the call display, welcoming the distraction. "Hello?"

"Darling!"

Arthur retreated into the hallway at the sound of Eames's voice. There was every likelihood that the next word out of his mouth would be inappropriate for the Cobblets ears.

Sure enough: "Fuck if I know why, but I've just landed in Los Angeles," Eames said.

Arthur wracked his brain and quickly came up with the name of the group of people Eames had pissed off in this corner of the world. "The Sureños will probably have something to say about that." He congratulated himself. With Eames, it was a long list.

"Not if they're not told," Eames retorted. There was music playing in the background. It sounded vaguely like Beyoncé. "Besides, that was ages ago."

James and Phillipa had started to discuss, rather loudly, the merits of Peppermint Patties over Junior Mints. Arthur blocked his ear with a finger and bent over the phone. "Where are you now exactly?"

"I just told you! L.A.! I caught the red eye and I downed Red Bull and watched twenty episodes of _Weeds_ and I am ready to _go_. What's on tonight, my pumpkin?"

"How do you know where I am? And I thought I told you not to call me that."

"To be sure, to be sure, Sugarpop. And I'm only following the odor of that delicious cologne you wear. I'll be there in five minutes."

"You'll be _where_ in five—" but Eames had hung up. Arthur removed his finger from his ear and turned back around to find James and Phillipa regarding him solemnly.

"You don't have a costume," Phillipa said. At some point during her heated candy debate with James her foam pompadour had gone askew.

Arthur knelt down to straighten it. "That's because I'm a grown-up."

"Grandma was a witch last year," James offered.

 _Just last year?_ Arthur wondered. He had heard stories.

"And Mom and Dad used to go as Boris and Natasha," said Phillipa. "From Rocky and Bullwinkle." Her lower lip trembled.

"Okay, okay," said Arthur in forced-cheerful tones. He wasn't sure he would know what to do if Phillipa started crying. "What do you think I should be?"

"James Bond!" James yelled.

Phillipa rounded on him. "You're not allowed to watch those movies."

He stuck out his tongue at her. "Neither are you."

"So, not James Bond," said Arthur. He sat down on the hall floor and James and Phillipa sat as well, James seemingly melting into his soft and capacious Peep costume and Phillipa daintily crossing her Elvis legs. "Do you have anything laying around I could just throw on?"

They had run through several options (ball gown, princess dress, Daddy's high school letter jacket) before Phillipa's eyes lit up and she squealed, "The Snuggie!" She was up and gone like a flash, her feet pounding up the stairs.

Arthur turned to James. "The what?" But James was too busy lining up his eyeholes to reply. Phillipa was back soon enough with a fleece armful that could only be described as periwinkle. She held it up proudly, but it more than dragged on the ground, so Arthur took it from her to get a better sense of scale. "Whose is this?"

"Dad's," Phillipa said. "Grandma gave it to him for his birthday."

So that explained it. Arthur vaguely remembered a mysterious text from Cobb somewhere mid-August which read, "Frenchwomen and infomercials do not mix." Arthur had chalked it up to an unfortunate evening adventure and left it alone.

James and Phillipa were both standing now, looking up at him expectantly, so Arthur let out a pleased, "Oh," and tried to negotiate how to put the thing on.

"Your arms go here and here," said Phillipa, pointing excitedly.

The doorbell rang.

James pouted. "But we don't even have our light on."

Phillipa checked her watch. "And there's still five minutes and nineteen seconds to go."

"Don't worry, kids," said Arthur, stumbling unthinkingly over to the door, "it's probably a Jehovah's Witness or a canvasser or—oh!"

Eames was standing on the other side of the door, a messenger bag slung over his shoulder, hands stuck jauntily in his pockets. When he saw Arthur, out came the hands, off slid the messenger bag, and down went Eames, leaning forward, resting his hands on his knees and laughing louder than Arthur had thought possible.

"Who is it?" Phillipa poked her head around Arthur, batting Snuggie material out of the way to do so.

"Elvis lives!" Eames exclaimed. He extended his hand. "Phillipa, darling, I love it. Very smart. Very drag king."

"Okay," said Arthur. "Come in before you scare the neighborhood."

Inside, Eames pulled action figure after action figure out of his bag and handed them, one by one, to James and Phillipa. It hadn't taken them very long to remember him, even though they had only met him once before.

"Look at that," Eames said proudly as he stood back and let James and Phillipa barter with each other over which toy was best. "I'm fun Uncle Eames."

"In your dreams," said Arthur before he could take it back. Even after years of working in dreams, the colloquialisms just wouldn't leave him alone.

Eames smirked. "I've decided to let that pass. We have other things to talk about." He gave Arthur the once-over.

Arthur felt his cheeks warm, but he had already made up his mind that to remove the Snuggie at this juncture would be an unequivocal sign of surrender. He compensated by refusing to smile. "Yes? Your point?" He placed one hand on his hip.

Eames bit back what Arthur was sure had guffaw potential. "You've been domesticated, that's all. Snuggles suit you."

"I think it's Snuggie, actually," said Arthur.

"Why? What did I say?"

Before Arthur could retort, James waddled up to Arthur, and tugged on his hand. "Get me out," he wailed. "I have to go."

Arthur blinked down at him blankly. "Have to go—" Then he noticed James's pained body language and the penny dropped. "Oh! Of course. I've got it." He unzipped the back of the Peep and James popped out like a jack-in-the-box. He rushed towards the downstairs bathroom in record speed.

"You'd be a good father," Eames said. "Too bad anyone'd have to be mad to want to make an honest man of you."

Phillipa looked from Eames to Arthur. "Why aren't you married?"

"I haven't had the time," Arthur said in his best teacher voice, locking eyes with Phillipa and attempting to block out Eames's giggles.

"Is there someone you like?" Phillipa asked, mouth hanging open, genuinely curious.

"Yes, Arthur," Eames added, "who will be getting your valentines this year? Who on earth shall you be taking to prom?"

Phillipa gasped, delighted, an idea having occurred to her. "Is it Ariadne?"

"Yes, darling," said Eames, laying it on thick, "is it Ariadne?"

James had returned from the bathroom just in time to pick up on Ariadne's name. He slid his feet into his costume and stood expectantly. "Ariadne what? Ariadne _what_?"

Arthur helped him pull the costume up and zip it again. Over his head, Phillipa clued James in, "Who Arthur's going to marry."

"But," James burst out, arms flapping, only to trail off, unsure.

"But what, my Easter treat?" Eames asked. Arthur was fairly sure Eames had once called him something similar.

"But," James shuffled from foot to foot, "Dad said Arthur and Eames're as married as swans."

There was dead silence in the room. Outside, the first group of trick-or-treaters walked by. Arthur could hear them scoping out the darkened front porch and complaining, "This guy is the suck. He yells when I throw the paper in the flowers," before moving on.

"Well," Arthur began, and stopped. "That's," he began again, trailing off just as quickly.

"Your father said this to you?" Eames asked, as if enquiring into the cucumber sandwich recipe at a garden fête.

"Nooo," James mumbled. "He said it on the phone."

Phillipa was bored. "Can we go? It's time."

"By all means!" Eames exclaimed. "Forward march." He gripped Arthur by the elbow and led everyone out of the house.

At the first house, they let James and Phillipa run ahead to the door while they stayed on the sidewalk.

"Swans, eh?" Eames said in Arthur's ear. "Ever-graceful Arthur."

"I'm going to kill Cobb," said Arthur. "I'm going to kill Cobb, and then I'm going to dress him in this Snuggie and I'm going to kill him again."

"Don't do that," said Eames. "The Snuggie deserves better. Periwinkle suits you." He rested a hand on Arthur's shoulder.

From the house, Arthur could hear the woman at the door doling out candy. "Two for you, and two for you, and," she broke off, glanced up, went on, "do you think your dads would like some?"

"Oh for fuck's sake," muttered Arthur. He plastered on a grin and waved his thanks across the lawn.

"Now there's an idea," said Eames. "I bet this Snuggie'd look even better on the floor."

"Don't you have a gang after you or something?" Arthur asked.

"Then there's not a moment to lose," said Eames, and took advantage of the darkness and the Snuggie's open back, to give Arthur a very un-swan-like pinch.


End file.
